Biography

Christopher Clau known as Christophorus Clavius is a scientist Jésuite German born the March 25th 1538 with Bamberg and deceased the February 2nd 1612 with Rome. As a mathematician, it wrote in 1574 a Latin version of the elements of Euclide, which comprised many complements due to its own work.

This version was an initial version for all the mathematicians of the Renaissance, like Descartes and Leibniz. In addition, he also wrote a book of algebra in 1608, and was the first to use the decimal point.

Its Algebra (Rome, 1608) mark first appearance of the symbols + and - in Italy.

Adversary of the system of Copernic, Clavius played a leading role in the reform of the Gregorian Calendrier, which made of him the target of several mathematicians, with the number of which François Viète. This last, in a series of lampoons whose Adversus C. Clavium expostulatio , showed Clavius to be mistaken on the significance of work of its precursor near the pope Gregoire XIII, the mathematician Aloysius Lilius, prematurely deceased.

Clavius was called Euclide of the 16th century. Its name was given to the crater Clavius, the larger second of the visible face of the the Moon.

Works of the Clavius Father

• Explanation of the Gregorian Calendar (Rome, 1603)

• Comments on Euclide, 1574.
• Treated of Gnomonique, 1581.

Secondary bibliography

• Sabine Rommevaux, Clavius, a key for Euclide in XVIe century . Paris, J. Vrin, 2005. (Mathesis). ISBN 2-7116-1787-4.

• Pierre Thuillier, were the Jesuits of the pioneers of science? (1988), in Of Archimedes with Einstein , Delivers Pocket, coll Biblio-Tests n°4237. ISBN 2-253-94237-5

Partial source

• .